Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor Sdn Bhd (Syabas) today clarified that the Selangor state government never gave any allocation to the company for capital expenditures (capex) since it began its concession agreement in January 2005.

Syabas' capex has instead been sourced from internally generated funds, bank loans, and loans and grants from the Federal government with no contribution at all from the state government, the water concessionaire said in a statement today.

"With the implementation of the non-revenue water (NRW) programme, Syabas has succeeded in reducing the NRW rate from 42.78 percent when the water distribution system was fully managed by the Selangor state government to 31.18 percent in September 2008 when Syabas took over the management on Jan 1, 2008," it said.

However, it said, its work programmes and subsequent efforts to reduce the NRW rate were hampered on the instruction of the Selangor state government which froze approvals for Syabas' capex programmes in 2008 except for very small and critical programmes, with the result that the NRW rate could not be further reduced and Syabas could only bring it down to around 33 percent, a rate which remains until now.

The company was responding to Selangor Menteri Besar Abdul Khalid Ibrahim's statement at the recent state legislative assembly sitting that the state government had allocated RM784 million to Syabas to reduce the NRW rate.

Syabas said since its concession agreement began in January 2005 until April 30, 2013, it had invested over RM2.578 billion in various capex programmes to repair and upgrade the water distribution network in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya aimed at enhancing the quality of services to consumers.

- Bernama